"We will shift our marketing from the broader NFL sponsorship" to focus on specific teams and players, Papa John's CEO Steve Ritchie said in a call with investors on Tuesday.

Papa John's and the NFL said in a statement that they made a "mutual decision" to end the pizza chain's official league sponsorship deal. In other words, Papa John's is no longer the official pizza of the NFL.

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Papa John's is Ending its Sponsorship Deal with the NFL CEO Steve Ritchie announced the split today during the company's earnings conference call, calling the decision mutual. The international pizza chain has seen a decline in sales after founder and then-CEO John Schnatter sounded off on player's kneeling during the national anthem. We are totally disappointed that the NFL and its leadership did not resolve the ongoing situation to the satisfaction of all parties long ago. This should have been nipped in the bud a year and a half ago. According to ESPN's Darren Rovell, Papa John's sales for Oct.-Dec. 2017 dropped 3.9 percent when compared to the year before.

Media: Wibbitz

On Tuesday, Papa John's reported that system-wide comparable sales dropped 3.9% in North America in the fourth quarter.

Executives said that "negative consumer sentiment" contributed to the sales slump.

Papa John's sparked controversy in November when founder and then-CEO John Schnatter slammed NFL leadership over players' kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality.

"We are totally disappointed that the NFL and its leadership did not resolve the ongoing situation to the satisfaction of all parties long ago," Schnatter said at the time. "This should have been nipped in the bud a year and a half ago."

AP Photo/Matt Dunham

The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started kneeling during the anthem in 2016 to protest racial injustice and police brutality. The controversy over the protests was renewed in September 2017 after President Donald Trump said players who did so should be fired.

Schnatter's statements dragged Papa John's into the middle of a polarizing debate, inspiring backlash on the left and support on the right. The Daily Stormer, a white-supremacist website, evenposted an articleasking whether Papa John's was the "official pizza of the alt-right." The chain responded that it did not want "hate groups" buying its pizza.